


little virtues

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: #CousyComfort, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, First Time, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season 5, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 18:02:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14454780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Written for the Cousy Comfort challenge at johnsonandcoulson.com - Daisy reflects on all the ways Coulson makes her feel better.





	little virtues

**1.**

She likes the way he holds her when they hug, especially the way his hand would snake up to the back of her neck, and hold her with light, unintrusive fingers, but with a safe grip - like someone holding a baby or perhaps a scared animal, a bird, the way you would hold a bird between your hands, yes, that’s the way Coulson wraps loose fingers around her nape, almost like he’d like to play with her hair, and Daisy feels very small, and very safe. Even when it’s him who’s in pain, him who’s dying, who should be comforted, Coulson does something like this. He holds her like this.

 

**2.**

It almost feels like there are entire languages in the way he says her name. 

In the past she has been able to read entire sentences in the way Coulson says her name. She could hear warning or pleas. She could hear “come back” or “be careful” or “please” a whispered “don’t”. But sometimes he’s not trying to say anything with her name, other than her name.

Sometimes _Daisy_ is just _Daisy_. 

Like now, when she is about to walk to certain death in a last minute attempt to stop catastrophe (but really, deep down, she’s also trying to save him).

Coulson says “Daisy” and she turns back one last time.

It makes her happy, even at the end of everything, to hear him say her name once more, the way he says her name.

 

**3.**

Coulson bringing her food is a thing. It’s happened before. Even now, with the exhaustion, the headache, the other injuries, Daisy remembers: chocolate, grilled cheese, twizzlers. She remembers, how could she forget.

There’s an echo of that as he sits her down and sits down with her, after everything has ended (or surprisingly, after everything hasn’t), and brings her a humble sandwich.

“It’s not hot food yet,” he says, even though he’s also brought her a cup of coffee. Daisy forgets where she is, in which secret organization’s headquarters they ended up. “But it’s better than those cereals you were munching on.”

She nods in what she hopes it’s a thank-you nod, and lets Coulson help her hold the mug of coffee in her hand, some bones fractured, nothing new. He looks exhausted, and he could be anywhere taking a rest. But he’s here with her, taking care of her. Daisy wonders if someone has taken care of him like this, and he looks like, _yes_ , someone a long time ago must have taken care of Coulson, must have taught him, because he knows how to do this, with patience and food and warmth.

A month later she is finishing her first day as the new Director of SHIELD. The title still feels alien and unearned, unearned like everything else, but Daisy knows it could be her mind trying to trick her, so she fakes confidence and focuses on getting the work done. And there he is at the end of her first (long) days in charge, waiting just to wait with her, to keep her company, humble sandwiches in hand, a side salad, something sweet to drink.

“It’s not much but, I imagined you could use it,” he says.

And he’s right, she’s depleted, used her powers enough to feel the toll in her muscles. She’s so grateful to Coulson, just a little thing, but otherwise she would have to look for food herself. So grateful he thought about it. And it reminds her of that one time Lincoln brought her food after training with her powers, and makes her wonder why it was only one time, and she’s slowly losing tracks of how often Coulson has done this for her.

 

**4.**

Mostly she is thinking back about those months after Hive, after Lincoln died, after the Sokovia Accords; she thinks back on the months of sharp-toothed loneliness and the pain.

Now she’s bleeding and all she can think of is how it felt to have to patch herself up on her own, to make sure she didn’t pass out in the middle of the mission, at risk from being caught by the authorities, SHIELD, or worse. She learned fast - that was nothing new, she has always had to learn fast how to take care of herself.

So now there’s the shock - and it is shock, numbing and incomprehensible - of finding other hands doing the job, after all those months on her own had taught her not to expect any help when she got help.

“The bullet went straight through,” Coulson is saying, as he applies gauze to the bleeding. “It should be okay.”

“I didn’t see it coming, I’m sorry,” she mutters.

“Don’t apologize to me,” he replies. “You’re the one who got shot.”

But all the blood, and Coulson having to crawl to her side and take care of her wound. It does feel like she should be apologizing. It feels like the natural state of things should be that she takes care of these things by herself, not involve others, not involve Coulson. She spent so long trying not to involve other ( _not involve Coulson_ ).

“But yeah,” he adds. “Be more careful, _please_.”

Heat in her cheeks and a stinging feeling in her eyes, it’s good she can hide emotion under the real pain of the gunshot wound.

 

**5.**

The new job, and Quake’s new public status, brings on a kind of fame Daisy is not prepared for. One unethical media outlet taking hold her childhood records after and Daisy is sitting on the hallway of a house she once lived in for three months, these walls that filled her with joy at finding a home and fear that she might eventually lose it (she did). While the agents sent ahead to make sure the house was secured against attacks - Quake’s enemies finding a new pawn to use against her - are still explaining the situation to Daisy’s former foster mother Daisy waits outside the living room.

“She hasn’t changed the wallpaper in almost twenty years,” she comments, shaking her head.

Coulson touches her shoulder for a moment, his company out here in this hallways as silent as it is vital for her. She doesn’t think she would have had the courage to stand here today without him. She thinks this is when it shifts, when her heart goes from loving him to being in love with him, waiting in this hallway.

“It’s funny, I spent so long resenting her for bringing me back to the orphanage,” she goes on, Coulson having a way of listening so that Daisy gives herself permission to go on. “But it wasn’t her choice at all. She must have been just as disappointed as I was.”

“I’m sure she’ll be very happy to see you again,” Coulson says, putting voice to her deeper fears and making them disappear in one single gesture.

 

**6.**

She likes the way his whole body seems to tremble and then shrink when she kisses him for the first time, how it feels like something is shifting and rearranging inside of him. He looks surprised through it all, even as he holds onto her hand as Daisy leads them both to her room. 

“Did you really never…?” she asks, curious.

“No,” he confesses, softly. She likes the naivete of the admission, the way it makes him look almost innocent in her eyes. Like he’s come to her without an agenda, like he’s come to her with his heart in his hand.

With other lovers she’s always made a point to take the first step, because it made her feel safer, to be in control. With Coulson she always feel safe, she doesn’t mind giving up a measure of control. Her taking the first step feels like something _he_ needs, not something she needs. Something she’s happy to give him.

“Phil,” he asks while they are in bed and he is under Daisy and his body still trembles even inside her, and she still likes it. “Call me Phil.”

His hands reaching for her and between their bodies, his touch as generous as ever, and yet more generous than ever.

He makes her feel good - she never imagined that to be a part of sex before. It was about being with someone, not feeling good. Coulson - _Phil_ \- makes her feel good, in here just as in any other situation, and it shouldn’t surprise her so much, that’s the thing about Phil, he’s always made her feel good. This is just in a different way.

 

**7.**

Daisy is no more used to being taken care of when she’s sick than to being taken care of in general, it seems. Because he knows her well Phil’s reassurance and comfort comes, first, in the way of announcing the ops for the day, telling her about how the rest of the team will pick up the slack as she gets some rest. Knowing that’s the only way she will allow herself to rest at all. He knows her so well - he does this first so that the rest of the stuff he does, bringing her medicine and food and helping her in and out of sweaty clothes, in and out of the shower, will feel less to Daisy like she is being a burden. So she’ll allow herself to be a bit clingy and hopeless, to demand kisses and cuddles and ice cream and painkiller.

“Sorry I took over your room,” she says, weakly gesturing around her, her clothes all over Phil’s chairs, and handkerchiefs full of her snoot all over his desks. His room being slightly bigger and definitely cleaner - since Phil already spends most of his time in Daisy’s bunk anyway - it seemed like the perfect aseptic environment in which she could recover.

He chuckles at her apology, and bends over reaching across the bed - his mouth feels gloriously cool to her fevered forehead.

“That’s upside of you getting sick,” he tells her, sounding shockingly happy, unbearably tender.

Daisy can smell the ingredients of homemade chicken soup on his clothes.

 

**8.**

She likes the way he takes her away from it all. Emotionally, yeah, she likes the way his mere presence in a room relaxes her, and can make her feel like a load has been shifted from her shoulders.

But physically too.

He steals her away.

Like a silent pack he guides her out of rooms and out of her own head. He sits her in Lola and he drives them both away. Until he finds some unfamiliar sight, something that might refresh Daisy. It doesn’t have to be a especially tough day in SHIELD, it doesn’t have to be that she’s taken a blow or lost someone. It could be just Phil sensing she could use the escape.

Daisy likes to think about it in those terms, _escape_.

It sounds romantic. Romantic like a red Corvette and a nice view of green hills and a sunset.

“Thanks, “ she says. “I needed that.”

He smiles. “I know.”

“Well, don’t look so smug.”

And he’s face makes her laugh. He always makes her smile, laugh. They kiss for a bit, and settle, and feel the cool breeze reach their cheeks. Daisy tries not to think how soon they’ll have to go back to the base and all the problems and responsibilities Phil took her away from will still be there. She tries not to think about it and in a big part she succeeds, which is another of the big gifts Phil has given her through the years.

“You have so much purpose,” he tells her. “Sometimes _too much_.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and knows he doesn’t mean it in an accusatory sense, that she should be making more time for him, no. He means she should be making more time for herself. He’s always cared about that, even before they became involved. (What does that word even mean, though? They’ve been involved since the day they met - hell, depending on what story you believe, they were involved even before; she just finds it hard to come up with an accurate-ish word for what they are)

“For a long time - _decades_ really - I felt like I didn’t have much purpose in my life,” he tells her.

“And SHIELD?”

“I had that but… it felt like an excuse most of the time,” he says. She gets what he means. A excuse not to live, a excuse to postpone living. Maybe he’s issuing a warning here. That she shouldn’t let SHIELD and Quake take over everything.

“Then I met you,” Phil adds. “And I found my purpose.”

“Oh,” she lets out unintentionally, surprised by the turn this took.

It’s something she’s heard before from men - even men who wanted to hurt her, they made her the purpose of their lives. But hearing it from Phil, for the first time it doesn’t feel like a burden.

 

**9.**

She’s never put too much value in these things - maybe when she was a kid, and she was obsessed with normalcy and family because they were things she didn’t have, and then there were things she never thought she could have. She doesn’t care much about legality, or forms, or labelling things - and she and Phil, they have actively avoided labelling their relationship for as long as they’ve known each other. But it’s been a year and she still gets a thrill out of hearing Phil casually throwing the word around, answering informal questions from subordinates about the mission with something like “Well, that’s for my wife to decide”, Daisy was embarrassed at first, like a fraud, like everybody could tell she didn’t deserve the word, she didn’t deserve Phil, like the more he used it the closer she got to being found out. Now it just causes her to stop in her steps with a _oh right_ thought, like she has forgotten and it makes her happy all over again, like the first day, like the happiness of calling him “husband” privately and in front of people, the way legalities or labels or even the idea of family doesn’t matter to her, but a word can make the world make so much more sense now.

 

**10.**

She likes the way he holds her when they hug - still so careful, such a slight touch. 

Even after everything - the closeness, the kisses, the sex, the new hyphenated names - he’s still careful when he hugs her, like he did before the closeness, the kisses, the sex, the new hyphenated names. It’s comforting in the way it reminds Daisy they are still the same people.

The people who fell in love, not just the people who _are_ in love.

But of course it’s different.

“Mmm, that’s nice,” she dares to say, when she feels his fingers gently wrapping around her neck.

“You like that?” he asks, sounding surprised, like he can finally let go of a secret.

He likes holding her this way, too.

And his fingers finally tangle with her hair, playing with it, as if that’s what he wanted to do, all those years ago.


End file.
